The 50th Annual ACM Awards are this Sunday, and we’re gearing up for the big event with a look at some of this year’s top-nominated projects! (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Be sure to catch all the excitement of the 50th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards when it airs Sunday, April 19th, from the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, at 8pm live ET/delayed PT on CBS.

ACM-Nominated for Single Record of the Year and Song of the Year: Miranda Lambert — “Automatic”

  Miranda Lambert felt like there was something special in the writing of “Automatic.” (:44)
“When we were writin’ this song, it felt like somethin’ was special about it. I just get chills every time I sing these words because all of it’s true. I mean, I literally had a clothesline growin’ up, and I got my ’55 out of the garage the other day and drove it around, and I had to push it out of the garage ’cause I couldn’t remember reverse ’cause I hadn’t driven it in a while! (laughs) I was like, ‘Oh, gosh, I don’t want to run into the wall.’ But it’s just…you know, it’s really…it really is what I’m about. I’m really kind of an old soul. I like simple things. I live very simply. I really do. We don’t have fancy cars, and I ride horses at home, and I’m just really a country, simple girl, and I think this song brings it back to that.”

  Miranda Lambert says that songs like “Automatic” can be a reminder to appreciate the present, as well as the past. (:30)
“It’s very fast paced, this life that I’m livin’ right now — and the life that we’re all livin’, and so some songs…I feel like those are the ones where you sort of take a minute and just slow down for a second, you know, and enjoy what’s happening because it’s always about the next: the next place, the next, you know, show, the next event, whatever’s happenin’, and it’s never about right now or what we did five years ago. It’s like, ‘Remember that time…’ It’s…I feel like I just want to make sure I’m enjoyin’ this, and it’s kind of like a mental scrapbook in a way.”

ACM-Nominated for Album of the Year:  Miranda Lambert — Platinum

  Miranda Lambert said last year that her chart-topping Platinum album is very much a reflection of her. (:27)
“I’m kind of moving through life and embracing the good and the bad, and I think that all of that is reflected on this album and in the lyrics and the vulnerability of these lyrics and also in the fun part of it and the sarcasm and a song like ‘Platinum’ and a song like ‘Two Rings Shy.’ There’s still this attitude, but it’s also not so chip-on-my-shoulder. It’s just kind of livin’ in the moment of bein’ 30 and where I am and what I’ve been through and where I’m going.”

  Miranda Lambert talks about her ACM Album of the Year nominee, Platinum. (:45)
“There’s not really a word that encompasses — or really one phrase — that encompasses this record to me. Really, the best reference I have is Revolution (laughs), because it’s the most like that record that I’ve done, but it’s still nothing like Revolution. I mean, it’s kind of like each song could be on its own album. You know? But somehow, together, all of these songs — all 16 of them (laughs) — make up this puzzle that goes together. It’s like a picture you hang on the wall, but without one of those pieces, one of those songs, it would just kind of look like abstract art. You’re goin’, ‘What is it?’ But together it makes a picture. But I don’t ever have…when people say, ‘What’s this album like?’ I’m like, ‘Really, you just have to hear it.’” (laughs)

  Miranda Lambert says that a lot of love and stress went into the making of Platinum. (:27)
“You know what? I have gone back and forth and just stressed out so bad. I’ve never had an ulcer; I don’t even know what those feel like, but I’m pretty sure I got one during this whole recording process. You know, I was jokin’ about, like, I think I’ve paced a hole in the floor of the studio during this whole deal because I just worried about, so much about wanting this to be perfect and wanting it — as perfect as it can be — wanting it to matter, and I just felt like I have a lot to say right now.”

ACM-Nominated for Vocal Event of the Year and Video of the Year: Miranda Lambert with Carrie Underwood — “Somethin’ Bad”

  Miranda Lambert shares some of the story behind her duet with Carrie Underwood. (1:00)
“Carrie and I both have rock edge to our…I mean, there’s a lot of rock & roll on both of our records at certain times — we’re country as hell sometimes, and then there’s…I mean, you’ve seen her sing with Steven Tyler — hello. So I thought why not…well, I had this idea a long time ago, and I told Blake [Shelton] — I was like, ‘I wanna write this country song, and me and her do it acoustic, about who’s gonna fill our shoes type deal, you know, at the Grand Ole Opry, with me and Carrie Underwood — and we’re gonna be country females,’ and all this. He was like, ‘Well, that’d be cool,’ and then like two hours later, he was like, ‘I just want to say one thing: you have Carrie Underwood. If she’s gonna sing with you, you need to take advantage of it. I mean, that’s Carrie Underwood, so you might just think about a rocker.’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, probably right.’ (laughs) So then I found that song, and I thought, ‘Well, this might be the one,’ you know, ’cause it rang in my head whenever I heard that song, thinkin’, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t try to do some sappy ballad. Maybe I should…we should just rock — and here we are rockin’.”

  Carrie Underwood talks about her duet with Miranda Lambert on the song “Somethin’ Bad.” (:52)
“The song ‘Somethin’ Bad,’ I mean I remember when Miranda sent me an e-mail kind of asking if I wanted to maybe be in on this really cool song she heard. And I don’t check my e-mail on a daily basis (laughs); it took me a couple days to actually get back to her. But I was…I love the song. It started out as kind of a guy/girl duet, so obviously we both knew that there had to be some lyric changes goin’ on. But I love the song. It’s such a rockin’ vibe and something that I could just really easily imagine us being in the studio and being on stage together and really just making something special out of it and having fun with the audience and just having fun with it. It’s not, you know, anything heavy and serious, which we definitely could have gone that way, and may still in the future some day, but I think we both just wanted to kind of just go have fun and be two strong women on stage singin’ together.”

  Carrie Underwood says that there was a lot of idea collaboration on the ACM-nominated music video for her hit duet with Miranda Lambert for “Somethin’ Bad.” (1:13)
“The ‘Somethin’ Bad’ music video, we actually kind of went through a few different ideas before we landed on one. We really wanted to get it right because we knew we had something special when we were recording it in the studio. So we really just wanted to have something that matched the energy of the song and what we did with it. So, we couldn’t find anything that both of us were just really, really happy and excited about, so I kind of started thinkin’, and I was like, I got ideas; I know stuff! (laughs) I’ve done a music video or two in my life. So I just thought, you know, why not just give it a crack, and what’s the worst that can happen? It can be terrible, and we can find some other story line (laughs) to go off of. So I just started searchin’ the Internet for images and things like that and kind of wrote a treatment, and we sent it to Miranda and everybody, you know, involved in…you know, label people and all that, and next thing you knew, we made some adjustments, and Trey Fanjoy made some adjustments and stuff like that because obviously she, as a director of music videos, knows far more about that than I. So we kind of made it a big collaborative process, and everybody pitched in some more ideas, and a couple weeks later, we were filmin’ it.”

  Carrie Underwood says that she had a blast making the “Somethin’ Bad” music video with Miranda Lambert. (:32)
“It was so much fun runnin’ around Nashville (laughs) with Miranda and all of our teams of people and doin’ what we do and runnin’ from explosions and playin’ poker games and ridin’ around in helicopters (laughs) and bein’ on motorcycles; it was just so much fun. And you could feel the energy, and you just knew it was gonna be good, even before we finished it and actually got to watch a finished product. I loved the way it turned out. I’m so happy; I couldn’t have asked for any more, and I think everybody loved it. It was good stuff, good times, a lot of fun.”

ACM-Nominated for Single Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Video of the Year: Kenny Chesney — “American Kids”

  Kenny Chesney knew that he’d found something distinctive with his smash single, “American Kids.” (:48)
“‘American Kids’ for me in a lot of ways validated my decision to take a year off the road, just for the creative process. It was important for me, at this point in my career and in my life as an artist, to not make a record that sounded like I was repeating myself. So, when I heard ‘American Kids,’ I went, ‘There it is. That’s something that’s very unique for me.’ And when you’ve been makin’ records for 20 years, to say that, it’s a blessing, because the way the melody wrapped around the lyric and the lyric wrapped around the melody was unique. But the way they wrote the song, and how it paints a lot of visual images and pictures of a lot of ways that I grew up, it’s very East Tennessee. But the brilliance of this song is I think that it makes everybody think that it’s their small town.”

  Kenny Chesney talks about his chart-topping single, “American Kids.” (2:05)
“You know, I knew within the first 30 seconds of listening to ‘American Kids’ that it was something pretty different for me. The cadence and the phrasing of the lyrics and the way the melody wraps itself around those lyrics in the song… it just felt so unique, and I knew as soon as I heard it that it was a song that had the potential to be pretty special for those reasons. The song, to me, felt like it took its time building, and it’s got a lot of twists and turns to get to where it’s eventually gonna end up. But for me, that was all a part of the unique ride that this song and the journey that this song takes us all on. To me, the song ‘American Kids’ also says something very real, and it captures I believe the real essence of my audience, who I believe are very smart, they’re wild, they’re a lot of free spirits, and they love pushing the limits in their own life, and I see that every night when I go up on stage. I see in our audience a lot of heart, I see in our audience a lot of soul and passion, and I see a lot of people who play hard, I see a lot of people who love hard, and people who work hard to make ends meet. And I also see kids out there that are loving that time in their life, but they’re unsure of where their life is headed, and if they’re anything like me — and I think I see that from the stage — I believe that all these people lean on music to help them figure it all out. And to me, that’s what ‘American Kids’ is all about. It’s about who we are, how we grew up, how we’re growing up, the things that matter the most in our life. The more I listen to it, I believe that ‘American Kids’ is postcards from real life. You know, this song, we hear a lot of songs on the radio, and everybody’s tryin’ to turn it up louder than everybody else, right? So (laughs), that’s all well and good, I like…sometimes I crank it up with ’em, but this song isn’t about fantasy, and it’s not a big party. I believe ‘American Kids’ is a song about life as it happens, and it’s a celebration of all the things that define us — a celebration of all the details that shape our lives and make us who we are.”

  Kenny Chesney says we’re all a little messed up, and that really is okay! (1:45)
“You know, my favorite line in the song ‘American Kids’ is ‘we’re a little messed up, but we’re all alright.’ And that line is…I mean, it defines me, it defines my audience, it defines No Shoes Nation, it defines my crazy road family, and I believe most of everyone can find a little bit of a common emotion in that phrase, ’cause somehow we do all get through it. I think we all have things in our lives that aren’t perfect. We all have dysfunction in our family, we all have dysfunction in our relationships and our friendships, but somehow we find a way to all get through it, and it all…you know, as my grandmother says, ‘It all comes out in the wash sometimes’…you know, most of the time anyway, and I think that’s the beauty of this song because it says that’s okay. It says it’s okay to be a little screwed up but we’re all alright, you know, ’cause we are. I mean, if you think about it, music is medicine in a lot of ways, and it’s one of the reasons we all love music so much because we are a little messed up, but somehow music makes us and it alright, and to me, this song has the ability to peel away a lot of layers in life, and I think when you peel away a lot of those layers, you find the truth. That’s what this song’s about – it’s a lot about truth, about how I grew up, about how I believe that a lot of people out there…especially if you grew up in a small town that you have these core values and these certain things that are very common in growing up like that. You know, I was the kid in this song. I was the guy that made out with his girlfriend in the Baptist church parking lot, who also went to football practice and maybe stretched the truth just a little bit about how far it went with the girl he was out with the past weekend. You know, and I think that happens all the time, and when I heard that in this song, I just shook my head and went, ‘You know what? This song is different.’”